Long Dark Night by Janci Patterson

Author:Janci Patterson [Patterson, Janci]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781625673152
Publisher: JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

Eleven

We both tumbled as we hit the ground. My legs buckled underneath me, and Jack fell knees first, his momentum carrying his chest flat to the ground.

He groaned, but I scrambled to my feet and pulled him up. Our broken bones were already working themselves back together.

We stumbled forward, and then ran. The other corpses must have taken longer to get past the wreckage; I could feel them coming after us, but not right on our heels. A few blocks away, I could see the lights of the strip, their glow simulating daylight. As we reached the stop light, I veered toward them. The corpses trailing us turned as well. The strip meant crowds, which might raise our chances of losing them. It would probably take the girl a while to extract herself from the car, and if she wasn’t careful, she might pierce her heart trying to get out. If she could sense us, this was the perfect chance to get out of her radius and away.

I raced down the sidewalk, Jack behind me. I could hear the corpses’ feet pound the sidewalk. They were gaining on us. Farther back, I could feel the driver corpse bend over what was probably the passenger side of the car, but as we ran, he faded away.

As we entered the city, we ran past rows of palm trees, backlit by the glow of the casinos. Small buildings gave way to taller ones, and bright signs towered overhead. Jack and I moved deeper into the strip.

Traffic was backed up along the road, and cars circled the entrances to parking garages. We ran past the entrance to a bar and lounge right as a group of twenty-somethings piled out of it. I nearly ran full-speed into a woman in a cocktail dress with blonde hair piled up high enough to make her a head taller. She swore at me as I dodged around her.

The corpses were even closer now—maybe twenty yards behind. They’d have a visual on us. We needed to do something besides run if we were going to lose them.

“We need to hide,” I said to Jack.

He nodded, running right beside me, and headed for a crowded part of the street.

We wove between tourists in jean shorts and teenagers posing for pictures. I wove as tightly around the groups as I could, so the corpses behind us might lose line-of-sight. Jack and I passed a dark alley, and at the end of it, I could see the back side of a casino fountain beyond an iron gate. It was a desperate gamble, but I didn’t have time to deliberate. I grabbed Jack by the arm and dashed down the alley. Grabbing the gate with my hands, I hoisted myself onto it, my tennis shoes scraping for a foothold.

We landed on the far side of a courtyard display, with topiary, glittering light displays, and cascading streams of water between us and an array of tables set up for guests to eat outdoors. The tables were mostly empty now.

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